


Wherever I May Roam

by tricksterity



Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 20:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1871943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricksterity/pseuds/tricksterity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick felt a strange sensation in his gut as he stared into the eyes of the man atop the mountain, weary and disheartened. He spends the next three years searching for answers, drinking, brawling, making sure he covers up that damned thing on his wrist, and as he closes his eyes every night in a bed or on an unknown floor those eyes are the only thing he sees behind his eyelids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wherever I May Roam

**Author's Note:**

> BECAUSE I LOVE THIS SHIP AND THERE IS LITERALLY NO FIC ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET

Rick felt a strange sensation in his gut as he stared into the eyes of the man atop the mountain, weary and disheartened. He walked for days, what felt like years but could only have been days, stumbling with heat exhaustion and dehydration, feet continuing to move and even as he tumbled onto the ground of the nearest town those eyes still remained in his mind.

He drank what was nearly a gallon of water and then proceeded to vomit most of that up, a few kind citizens taking pity on him and getting him back to his feet. He had lost all of his men at Hamunaptra, every single goddamn one of them, who had followed him without orders until their blood spilled on the sand.

He spent the next three years searching for answers, drinking, brawling, making sure he covered up that damned thing on his wrist and as he closed his eyes every night in a bed or on an unknown floor those eyes were the only thing he saw behind his eyelids.

He spiraled further downwards, survivor’s guilt gnawing at his insides, unable to figure out why the gaze of an unknown warrior had taken ahold of him so tightly that he wasn’t able to escape it for three good years.

Three years until the rope around his neck was cut and that damn woman was sending him straight back to Hamunaptra. It helped a little that she was easy on the eyes, intelligent and a little bit vague. She made him laugh and he loved the expression on her face when it lit up when she began to passionately explain her love for Egypt. He probably would’ve married her someday, if it hadn’t been for the rider who he tackled from his horse, who turned around and brandished a sword and had a gaze that pierced straight through him. 

Those eyes that had haunted him returned full-blast, Rick shot the man’s sword out of his hands and the warrior looked almost surprised at it, like he hadn’t expected him to shoot. Well, he was American and he was being attacked in the middle of the night by mysterious men, he should’ve thought better.

Then his voice joined his eyes deep in Rick’s mind when he spoke, deep and commanding, clearly the leader of these warrior protectors. Rick scoured the man’s face, those tattoos on his cheeks, his long hair, the blade that he wielded with practiced ease. The man looked at Rick like he knew him, and Rick couldn’t shake the feeling that he was supposed to recognize him. Like when you were trying to remember something incredibly important that happened so long ago but no matter how much you repeated _it’s on the tip of my tongue_ it never came. 

Rick had learned to trust his gut, no matter if it told him that there was evil buried beneath the sand or someone was watching him and the hair prickled on the back of his neck or that the black book was not to be messed with. He listened when it told him that he should know this man, and in between the plagues and the undead and hieroglyphics he tried to remember. 

The museum curator introduced the man as Ardeth, and a little something tingled at the back of Rick’s mind, but he still couldn’t recall anything. Every time he found himself standing next to the man, looking at him, he repeated that name in his head hoping that if he said it enough it would mean something. He pointed a gun at Imhotep as Evie went bravely with him and a comforting hand rest on his shoulder, took an intimate hold of his wrist and he felt a tug at his heart, he _knew this_. He knew this man’s touch, his gaze, his voice, as surely as he knew the trigger of his gun. 

He just didn’t know how.

He did know, however, that he and Ardeth worked as a seamless team. It felt like they’d worked together for years as they walked in tandem, guns strapped across their backs, firing with ease as they knew that as soon as one reloaded, the other would lay down suppressive fire. He passed off his gun to Ardeth who already had his hands open and waiting for it, and suppressed the urge to giggle when he lit his match with the friction from the warrior’s beard.

And then Ardeth rushed off into a hallway full of undead priests to buy them some time and Rick couldn’t pull his eyes away from the man, who looked back with determination and desperation, like he had hoped he wouldn’t die before something nameless happened. Rick couldn’t understand the yawning chasm that opened up within his sternum when the warrior was gone from his sight and he pleaded to every deity he knew to keep him safe. 

It all came to a head when Imhotep was dead and Anck-su-namun had been slain, when they’d escaped from the crumbling city and Evie sagged into her brother’s arms with relief. Rick didn’t start as a hand came down onto his shoulder, and turned to see the man who had haunted him for three years smiling down at him, a little beat up but alive and well.

Evie and Jonathan rode off with a hearty farewell and looted gold attached to their steed, and Ardeth gently unbuckled the leather strap that wrapped around his wrist. His fingers were deft, callused fingertips sliding against the sensitive skin and Rick nearly couldn’t stop the shudder from sliding down his spine. The leather fell to the sand, and fingers dragged softly over the thin flesh of his wrist, where the ink had sunken into his skin.

“Who are you?” Rick asked, looking up from their hands into Ardeth’s eyes; that gaze piercing him like it had so many times before. “How do I know you?”

“Do you not remember?” Ardeth asked gently, sliding back down to the ground, feet soundless as they hit the sand. His fingers stayed wrapped around Rick’s wrist.

“Should I?” Rick asked, although he didn’t need to ask the question to know what the answer would be. Ardeth took a step forward, the air between them heavy despite the desert wind that brushed past them.

“Just as the creature and his lover were reborn, so were others of the past,” Ardeth spoke quietly, not breaking their gaze. “The Pharaoh, Seti I, who was to marry Anck-su-namun had a daughter, Nefertiri… she bares a striking resemblance to young Evelyn.” Ardeth looked at him like this was supposed to be significant.

“There were two young Medjai warriors in training who, among others, protected the princess,” Ardeth said. His thumb stroked over the tattoo slowly, gently, enough that Rick broke eye contact with the man to look at the soft grip on his wrist, the intimate touch. His eyes closed, and the thumb continued to stroke his skin gently, calling to mind a hot breeze, the clashing of swords, the smell of sweat and a laugh close to his ear of a young boy on the cusp of becoming a man.

“The young warriors were _mahjmorr_ , a pair who had been selected from birth, trained together to form a seamless unit since they would walk,” Ardeth continued quietly, and the scenes played out before Rick’s eyelids like he was actually there. A pair of young boys, one dark skinned, the other lighter, playing together in the sands of Egypt. One with dark eyes, one with light, staring at each other with twin smirks as their weapons clashed together, soon thrown aside and replaced with fists.

Two boys, brothers in all but blood, donning the robes of the Medjai, kneeling before the Pharaoh and his princess, swearing fealty for eternity. Two boys wrestling in the dirt, two boys leaping from the shadows and slitting the throats of the midnight assassins. Two boys bloodied and bruised but grinning together. Two boys curled up in the darkness, whispering secrets into each other’s skin. Two boys, good apart, but deadly together. Two boys, one soul, one mind.

“One warrior remembered,” Ardeth whispered quietly, so softly his voice was almost swallowed by the wind. “And one… forgot.”

“How could I?” Rick asked, voice equally quiet, eyes shut and scared that if he opened them he’d forget everything he saw. The hand not wrapped around his wrist came to the side of his neck, fingers curling around the back and thumb sliding along his jaw. Rick leaned into it, like a cat arching its back, unable to stop his body from what it remembered so long ago.

“We all forget,” Ardeth replied gently. “The Medjai taught me to remember, just as I can teach you, if that is what you truly wish.”

At this admission, Rick opened his eyes, slightly stunned at the warmth, compassion and _understanding_ in the man’s eyes. He would accept if Rick didn’t want to know of his past life, if he wanted to leave the borders of Egypt to never return, to put Hamunaptra behind him forever. Rick could leave right now; leave Ardeth and his past and his future, to run away like he’d so wanted to before the rivers of blood. He had every opportunity to leave it all behind and run-

“Teach me,” is what he said, and Ardeth smiled bright. The Medjai slid his hand up from his wrist and across his collarbone to stop on his heart; his other hand at Rick’s neck brought him forward until their foreheads touched. Rick closed his eyes and breathed in, the memories so close it was like seeing them through frosted glass. Ardeth spoke foreign words Rick was not familiar with, but he felt their meaning in his bones and his blood. _Remember_.

Then soft lips pressed against his, and like a sigh as one entered warm water, the memories came trickling back. Not as a painful rush, but as a gentle breeze that brushed his skin, shattering the glass and allowing him to see them in full detail, a whole other life that had ended shortly and abruptly with his body in his lover’s arms, blood flowing in short, sharp spurts from his neck. Rick hissed and tried to pull back, but strong hands kept him in place, and soon the pain and disorientation of his own death passed. In it’s place it left a longing, an abyss that clenched iron bars around his heart, an unimaginable love with deep sadness and longing.

Rick grasped Ardeth and pressed their lips together, not gently or soft like he would probably have done with Evie, but hard and desperate, unable to tell if the salt he tasted were Ardeth’s tears or his own.

“I remember you,” he gasped into Ardeth’s mouth, and the warrior lit up with a joy that challenged the glare of the sun. Rick wrapped his arms around the man whom he had known forever, dug his fingers in like claws, and vowed to never let go again.


End file.
